"Anyone concerned with social justice will find this book makes him question his assumptions, rethink his premises, and think!" —Andrew P. Morriss, professor, Bush School of Government and Public Service, School of Law, Texas A&M University What is social justice? In these pages, twenty-one accomplished academics seek to do justice to "social justice." Inequality exists and it obviously causes rifts in societies. But it's not obvious how the government should address those rifts, or if it should address them at all. Have we forgotten the perhaps more efficient power of personal choice—and the corollary obligation: to serve our neighbors—to make our society more humane? Beginning with the first political philosophers in ancient Athens, and continuing right through Marx into our post-modern era, men have wrestled with the question of justice; and the answers have been as earnest as they have been varied. Today, our "expert" class also claim to have answers—updated answers, more "equitable" answers, more technological answers ... in short, answers that are simply better suited to our times. But are those answers in any way correct? Do they work? Are they—just? In these elegant, nuanced essays, the authors use the wisdom of ancient and modern philosophers to shed light on these important questions—and the answers are revealing. Armed with ample evidence from real-world experiences, lessons from history, the wisdom of the classics, modern philosophers, and even the teachings of the world religions, the contributors of Is Social Justice Just? Illuminate the central role of the individual in achieving justice in all its aspects. Read Is Social Justice Just? And discover: how to do social justice wrong with the poison of resentment, envy, and ignorance; how to do social justice right with the insights of philosophers and theologians; how to respect people's rights and liberties without sacrificing true equality; and how to reform flawed public policies that just make everything worse. In a world of partisanship, hysteria, maliciousness, and good intentions attached to hellish outcomes, this landmark book enters the public discourse at a critical time. With a foreword by Jordan B. Peterson, a preface by Nicholas Rescher, and a collection of essays by some of the best and brightest scholars of our time, Is Social Justice Just? is a timely and urgent work. Read it, and you will begin to think about "social justice," and justice, in some surprising new ways.

The International Society for Justice Research (ISJR) aims to provide a platform for interdisciplinary justice scholars who are encouraged to present and exchange their ideas. This exchange has yielded a fruitful advance of theoretical and empirically-oriented justice research. This volume substantiates this academic legacy and the research prospects of the ISJR in the field of justice theory and research. Included are themes and topics such as the theory of the justice motive, the mapping of the multifaceted forms of justice (distributive, procedural) and justice in context-bound spheres (e.g. non-humans). It presents a comprehensive "state of the art" overview in the field of justice research theory and it puts forth an agenda for future interdisciplinary and international justice research. It is worth noting that authors in this proposed volume represent ISJR's leading scholarship. Thus, the compilation of their research within a single framework exposes potential readers to high quality academic work that embodies the past, current and future trends of justice research.

What is social justice? For Friedrich Hayek, it was a mirage—a meaningless, ideological, incoherent, vacuous cliché. He believed the term should be avoided, abandoned, and allowed to die a natural death. For its proponents, social justice is a catchall term that can be used to justify any progressive-sounding government program. It endures because it venerates its champions and brands its opponents as supporters of social injustice, and thus as enemies of humankind. As an ideological marker, social justice always works best when it is not too sharply defined. In Social Justice Isn’t What You Think It Is, Michael Novak and Paul Adams seek to clarify the true meaning of social justice and to rescue it from its ideological captors. In examining figures ranging from Antonio Rosmini, Abraham Lincoln, and Hayek, to Popes Leo XIII, John Paul II, and Francis, the authors reveal that social justice is not a synonym for “progressive” government as we have come to believe. Rather, it is a virtue rooted in Catholic social teaching and developed as an alternative to the unchecked power of the state. Almost all social workers see themselves as progressives, not conservatives. Yet many of their “best practices” aim to empower families and local communities. They stress not individual or state, but the vast social space between them. Left and right surprisingly meet. In this surprising reintroduction of its original intention, social justice represents an immensely powerful virtue for nurturing personal responsibility and building the human communities that can counter the widespread surrender to an ever-growing state.

Social justice language teacher education conceptualizes language teacher education as responding to social and societal inequities that result in unequal access to educational and life opportunities. In this volume authors articulate a global view of Social Justice Language Teacher Education, with authors from 7 countries offering a theorized account of their situated practices.

In this book author Cathy Benedict challenges and reframes traditional ways of addressing many of the topics we have come to think of as social justice. Offering practical suggestions for helping both teachers and students think philosophically (and thus critically) about the world around them, each chapter engages with important themes through music making and learning as it presents scenarios, examples of dialogue with students, unit ideas and lesson plans geared toward elementary students (ages 6-14). Taken-for-granted subjects often considered beyond the understanding of elementary students such as friendship, racism, poverty, religion, and class are addressed and interrogated in such a way that honours the voice and critical thinking of the elementary student. Suggestions are given that help both teachers and students to pause, reflect and redirect dialogue with questions that uncover bias, misinformation and misunderstandings that too often stand in the way of coming to know and embracing difference. Guiding questions, which anchor many curricular mandates, are used throughout in order to scaffold critical and reflective thinking beginning in the earliest grades of elementary music education. Where does social justice reside? Whose voice is being heard and whose is being silenced? How do we come to think of and construct poverty? How is it that musics become used the way they are used? What happens to songs initially intended for socially driven purposes when their significance is undermined? These questions and more are explored encouraging music teachers to embrace a path toward socially just engagements at the elementary and middle school levels.

Assessment for Social Justice takes the established idea of 'assessment for learning' and extends it to consider how assessment contributes to social justice within and through higher education. Jan McArthur invites the reader to rethink familiar positions on assessment and fairness and seeks to explore the full complexity of a critical theory-inspired notion of social justice. She positions her work in contrast to more procedural approaches to social justice, such as John Rawls's influential theorisation of social justice. In contrast, McArthur draws on the work of third generation critical theorist, Axel Honneth, and takes inspiration from Honneth's three realms of mutual recognition in order to reconsider the nature of assessment relationships and practices. A further theoretical strand is introduced in the form of social practice theory, and particularly the work of Theodore Shatzki. McArthur provides a theoretically rigorous understanding of assessment as a social practice, and as a vehicle both for and against social justice. Together with critical theory, this work enables a realizable vision of an alternative approach to assessment in higher education, where the underlying aim is greater social justice. McArthur argues that students must be nurtured to recognise the social contribution that they can make as a result of engaging with knowledge in higher education, rather than defining their achievements in terms of a mark, grade or degree classification.